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Pages 1 and 2: 32.4 cm x 20.5 cm; pages 3 and 4: 8.1 cm x 20.5 cm

page:

[Please note: This is not the published version of the Declaration of
Independence, but a manuscript copy of an earlier version of the text.]

A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America in
General Congress assembled.

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to
dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,
& to assume among the powers of the earth, the
separate & equal station, to which the laws of
nature & of nature's god entitle them, a decent
respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes
which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal:
that they are endowed by their creator with inherent & inalienable rights: that [among] these are life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness: that to secure these rights,
governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the
consent of the governed: that whenever any form of government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish
it, & to institute new government, laying it's
foundation on such principles, &
organising it's powers in such form, as to them
shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. prudence indeed
will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light
and transient causes: and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind
are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right
themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. but when a
long train of abuses & usurpations, begun at a
distinguished period, & pursuing invariably the same
object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their
right, it is their duty, to throw off such government & to provide new guards for their future security. such
has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the
necessity which constrains them to expunge their former systems of government.
the history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of unremitting
injuries & usurpations, among which appears no
solitary fact to contradict the uniform tenor of the rest, but all have in
direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. to
prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world, for the truth of which we
pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.

He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the
public good:

he has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate & pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation
till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has neglected
utterly to attend to them.

he has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts
of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in
the legislature, a right inestimable to them, &
formidable to tyrants only.

he has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable,
& distant from the depository of their public
records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his
measures.

he has dissolved Representative houses repeatedly & continually, for opposing with manly firmness his
invasions on the rights of the people.

[He has] refused for a long time after such dissolutions,
to [cause] others to be elected, whereby the legislative
powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for
their exercise, the state remaining in the mean time, exposed to all the
dangers of invasion from without, & convulsions
within.

he has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that
purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass
others to encourage their migration hither; &
raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

he has suffered the administration of justice totally to cease in some of
these states; refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary
powers.

he has made our judges dependant on his will alone, for the tenure of his
offices, & the amount &
paiment of their salaries.

he has erected a multitude of new offices by a self-assumed power,
& sent hither swarms of officers to harass our
people & eat out their substance.

he has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies & ships of war without the consent of our
legislatures.

he has affected to render the military independant of, & superior to, the civil power.

he has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our
constitutions and unacknoleged by our laws;
giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation for quartering large
bodies of armed troops among us; for protecting them by a mock trial from
punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these
states; for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world; for imposing
taxes on us without our consent; for depriving us of the benefits of trial by
jury; for transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences;

for abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province,
establishing therein an arbitrary government, &
enlarging it's boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit
instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these states;

character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit
to be the ruler of a people who mean to be free. future ages will scarce
believe that the hardiness of one man adventured within the short compass of
twelve years only, to build a foundation, so broad &
undisguised, for tyranny over a people fostered &
fixed in principles of freedom.

Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. we have
warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend a
jurisdiction over these our states. we have reminded them of the circumstances
of our emigration and settlement here, no one of which could warrant so strange
a pretension: that these were affected at the expence of our own blood &
treasure, unassisted by the wealth or the strength of Great Britain: that in
constituting indeed our several forms of government, we had adopted one common
king, thereby laying a founda [ . . . ]